


Said Not To Me

by vials



Category: A Perfect Spy - John le Carré
Genre: Gen, nearly 2k words of Grant being Grant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 08:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9227528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: Grant can never stop thinking about what could have been, even when he should be counting his blessings. There's probably a saying for that.





	

They had thought about it. They had never said it; never even acted on it, but they had thought about it. Grant would have had to have been truly dense to not notice, and anyway, Mary wasn’t exactly subtle. She just had a talent for making these things only visible from certain angles, to certain people – she was like her husband in that respect, Grant thought. Not to the same level, because then he wouldn’t be able to stand her either, but she had certainly picked up a few tricks in her time. 

It was all a bit of fun, of course. A thought exercise, for when Grant was feeling especially bitter towards Magnus, or if he had been away from Bee for enough time to still be enjoying his freedom but not quite long enough to miss her yet. It was ridiculous, because he loved Bee, and he would never actually touch another woman, but… well, like his mother always used to tell him – that’s why god gives you thoughts. 

Still, it was sometimes a little difficult to stick to thoughts when it came to Mary; she seemed to have a talent for homing in on things that people would prefer went unnoticed, and Grant supposed that was because she had to deal with Magnus all the time. If she didn’t do that, she would never get anything out of him. He couldn’t quite blame her for that, considering he’d had to use the same tactic multiple times to get a straight answer out of the man, but he couldn’t say that he appreciated it being turned on him. Grant had never been appreciative of his own tricks being turned on him, and he supposed that was the entire problem, really.

The two of them were probably too drunk to be allowed access to a balcony, but the apartment behind them was crowded and overly stuffy and Grant hated the feeling when he was drunk, when the air was too warm and he felt as though he was gasping for breath. The balcony was large and despite the cold weather they weren’t the only ones out there; a small group of people sat near the door, and a couple was crammed into the far corner, lost in their own world. Mary and Grant stood leaning against the railing, looking out over the lights and appreciating the icy bite to the wind on their faces.

He barely remembered what had led to the conversation now, just that all of a sudden the cold air and the subject matter had left him feeling very sober and very exposed, almost as though Mary had reached into his head and pulled the thoughts right out of him.

“It’s odd, the looks I get from the other wives,” Mary said, taking a casual sip from her glass of wine as she did so. “I think they all must think it’s highly inappropriate, that I’m out here alone with you. Or sometimes I wonder if they think that because Magnus doesn’t seem to care about who I’m left alone with, that means he must be cheating on me. Can you imagine the kind of thought processes a woman must have to lead her to that conclusion?”

Mary laughed, a bright, genuine thing, and Grant glanced at her, trying to assess where, if anywhere, she was going with it.

“You know what the wives are like,” he said, not committing to anything right now. “They’ll just about die if there isn’t a scandal to constantly update one another on, and if there isn’t one, they’ll just make one up. Bee says it drives her insane.”

“Bee also tells me that there’s a lot of scandal based around our little foursome,” Mary said, shaking her head and smiling. “Have you heard that we’re having an affair?”

“Oh?” Grant asked. “Well, that’s news to me. How long have we been together?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Mary aid, laughing again. “Some people say it’s a new thing. Some people say it’s been going on for months, even _years_. And I’m sure a few more people will say that it started right now, on this balcony.”

“Truly scandalous,” Grant said, as though he wasn’t considering whether or not that would be a bad thing. It was an odd thought process, really, not driven by any desire to cheat on Bee but more driven by the urge to get even with her, if she was cheating, or to head her off, if she was planning on it. Stupid, absolutely stupid, but a thought that returned to him over and over. He wondered if Mary ever felt the same way. He wondered if he was the only one in their group that thought this, and then he wondered about what that would say of him. 

He supposed Magnus didn’t have this problem. No, he seemed perfectly happy with Mary, and for that matter, it was ridiculous to think that Mary might be miserable. The Pyms were probably the most disgustingly happily married people Grant had ever seen, and he supposed that was the cause behind all the gossip that Bee told them about.

Grant felt a flicker of anxiety when he considered that, wondering why, in that case, there weren’t rumours flying about he and Bee’s respective infidelity. He mentally shook his head. That was not a route of competition that he wanted to go down.

“I suppose we’ll be giving them all something to talk about, standing out here,” Mary said, laughing, and then the door opened again behind them and Magnus and Bee appeared, looking briefly confused before they spotted them.

“There you are!” Magnus said as they approached. “We were wondering where you’d gone.”

“Oh, we were out here canoodling,” Mary said, greeting Magnus with a firm kiss. “Haven’t you heard? And I suppose you and Bee were on your way out here to do the same, hmm?”

“Of course,” Magnus said, enjoying the joke. “We’re thoroughly disappointed that you beat us to it.”

“Looking for you was merely a cover story,” Bee added, slipping her hand into Grant’s as she caught up to him. 

For the first time, Grant realised how they must look to others. The ease with which they all played along, how quickly the jokes flew back and forth, how comfortable they all appeared to be with one another… Grant had never experienced it before, or at least, not to his knowledge, but he supposed this was what it meant to belong to a crowd. He wasn’t sure why the thought made him feel so strange, nor did he understand why it filled him with more frustration than satisfaction; after all, hadn’t this always been what he wanted? To be the subject of envy rather than its servant? But of course nothing was ever as good as it seemed, and standing on that cold balcony that night he thought he could understand why people wanted to speculate and destroy what looked like perfection. Perhaps that was why he found himself thinking the things that he did. What was the other thing his mother had always told him? If something was too good to be true, it probably was.

Grant found it shockingly easy to lose himself in whatever drink was pressed into his hand after that; the earlier feeling of being dangerously close to too drunk had been forgotten, and if he did remember it, he didn’t care. He could feel his mood darkening and he at least cared about that much, because he was positive that Magnus had been picking up on it as of late and Grant would rather die than allow the man to draw a correlation between himself and Grant’s bitterness. He knew that Magnus was aware he hated him, and he was aware that the feeling was mutual, but he wasn’t going to hand these things to the man on a silver platter. 

“We’re getting looks again,” Magnus told him. They were back inside the apartment now, in some corner of some living room, and Grant hadn’t noticed the looks and nor could he care less. “Probably wondering what we’re doing talking to one another, given the scandal.”

“For all you lot talk about it, I’m surprised we haven’t just swapped for a night already,” Grant said, saying the words before he had thought about them properly but finding himself not regretting them. “Christ, it feels like we’re all tiptoeing around it sometimes, with all this preoccupation about who’s saying what.”

“You know how the saying goes,” Magnus said, infuriatingly unthreatened by Grant’s comments. “If everyone’s making you do the time, you might as well do the crime.”

“That sounds like it might be the shallowest justification I’ve ever heard,” Grant shot back, and of course Magnus just laughed.

“Is it not what you were getting at, though?” he asked, pleasant as always. “I wouldn’t blame you, to be honest. Mary is incredible. Sometimes I wonder what she’s doing with the likes of me.”

_You and me both, brother,_ Grant thought, but for once he held his tongue, probably because he was distracted by something else entirely.

“She’s setting you up for this,” he said bluntly, and Magnus didn’t seem surprised to hear the words.

“Come now,” he said, laughing again. “Why do you think that? Can I not sing my wife’s praises?”

“Sounds more like you’re seeing if I’ll take the bait,” Grant said, automatically scanning the room for sight of Mary and Bee. “I bet they both set you up to this. Testing my loyalties. Clever trick, but not clever enough. Tell Bee I love her dearly, and the fact she sincerely thinks she can get away with this is one of the many reasons why.”

Magnus smiled, one of those rare smiles that Grant thought might actually be genuine if Magnus had ever seen a genuine smile in his life, and of course that was when Mary and Bee appeared seemingly out of nowhere, positively beside themselves with laughter.

“You’ve got a keeper there, Bee,” Mary was saying, and Bee flashed her a knowing smile as she caught up to Grant, slipping an arm around his waist and leaning up to kiss him.

“I’ll be remembering that later,” she said, speaking to everyone but her eyes only on Grant, and something briefly settled in Grant’s chest, the kind of feeling that came from knowing he had said something he meant, something that wasn’t laced with anything else. It was something that happened rarely; the rush of affection he felt for Bee combined with the amount of drink in his system was almost enough to make him tearful, if he was that kind of man.

He looked down at her, kissed her again, and somewhere in his peripheral vision he saw Mary, tugging at Magnus’s jacket and pulling him closer to her, saw her lips move and shape the words _I love you_ , and despite all of his efforts he couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like if she was saying those words to him.


End file.
